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Brooklyn Flea to Open New Food and Beer Garden

The Brooklyn Flea will open a new, 9,000-square-foot food and beer garden in the northwest corner of Crown Heights, Brownstoner reports—and of course that site reported it, since its founder is behind the larger development of which the new space will be a part.

Jonathan Butler, along with the developer BFC and Goldman Sachs’ Urban Investment Group, has closed on three adjacent industrial properties totaling over 155,000 square feet of space at 1000 Dean Street. The new beer hall space will be on the Bergen Street side (pictured); the rest they plan to turn into office space to attract the sort of businesses now getting shut out of no-vacancy DUMBO.

“In our dreams, the main building will be a mix of large and small creative tenants drawn from the immediate and surrounding neighborhoods,” Butler writes on Brownstoner, “including food producers, tech start-ups, artists, writers, furniture makers, jewelry makers, etc.” The space is within a mile of many neighborhoods “chock full of creative professionals… In addition to Crown Heights, there was Bed Stuy, Clinton Hill, Prospect Heights and even bits of Fort Greene and Park Slope (barely!),” not to mention Prospect-Lefferts Gardens.

Butler started Brownstoner in 2003, then co-founded the Brooklyn Flea in 2008 (with Eric Demby); now, he’s a developer. “It actually feels like a pretty natural progression,” he tells us. “Before I moved to Brooklyn in 2003, I’d been a journalist, I’d worked on Wall Street, and I’d done one big commercial real estate deal. At the end of the day, Brownstoner, The Brooklyn Flea and now 1000 Dean Street all come back to one theme: community. Whether it’s online, in an empty lot or in a gigantic 1920s building, it’s about bringing people together around shared interests and common values.

“Of course, the stakes are a little higher with a 155,000 square feet and millions of dollars on the line, but I think there’ll be no shortage of people who want to be part of this creative community.”